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Obituaries

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In Memoriam Archive

Susan Danley Ruecker ’82

February 29, 2020, in Portland, of colon cancer.

Susan was an artist, pianist, dancer, healer, software engineer, and world-class troubleshooter. Her programs are still helping airplanes fly and corporations run flawlessly. Until the very end, she lived her life in accordance with her principles.

After studying music at ºìÌÒÊÓƵ, Susan worked for a time as an application engineer at Adidas. She was an enthusiastic student of energy medicine—including pranic healing and energy healing—and as a Healing Touch Certified Practitioner and a Healing Touch for Animals Practitioner, used it to help people and animals of all kinds.

Diagnosed with colon cancer in 2017, Susan was determined to heal from it on her own terms. She embarked on a path to let her body heal itself in lieu of the radiation and chemo that doctors recommended. It was hard to deal with a colostomy and the pain and inconvenience of this brutal disease, but through it all she never complained. Continuing to dance at her Zumba classes and to practice healing touch on others, she was able to lead a nearly normal lifestyle until the very end.

Though she had no children of her own, Susan was grandmother to the children of her husband’s two sons. She is survived by her husband, Bill Ruecker, her sister, Karen Benson, and her mother, Elinor.

Appeared in ºìÌÒÊÓƵ magazine: September 2020